Graduations 2017

Whether it’s helping a fellow student traverse an icy campus or finding the inner strength to overcome a fall, Mitchell College graduates heard final words of advice Saturday to get up and keep going and help others to do the same.

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The 255 graduates of East Lyme High School's Class of 2017 gathered indoors in the gym on the rainy evening, alongside faculty, family, local officials and friends, to celebrate their years in high school.

The graduates, who sat in sopping wet green gowns, yellow carnations in hand, voted 180 to 20 to have the ceremony outside so as not to limit the number of people who could come, said state Rep. Joe de la Cruz, D-Groton, a 1989 New London High School graduate who was the guest speaker.

Find your passion, embrace your failures and forget your fears. That’s the advice Joseph Vincente, a 2002 graduate of Montville High School who is now vice principal at East Side Community High School in New York City, gave to the 141 members of the Class of 2017 who received their diplomas on Friday.

The Class of 2017 includes three students accepted to the U.S. Coast Guard, one accepted to the U.S. Naval Academy, and members of the school's championship robotics team, softball team and marching band.

Assembled under the shade of a large tree on the Wheeler Library lawn, with a good chunk of the town on hand to watch, the Class of 2017 was reminded by their speakers that the intimate connections of their small high school will only grow as they get older.

NFA started a new graduation tradition Thursday that officials hope never to need again. Class of 2017 members Grace E. Hanlon and Edison J. Medina died within the past year, Hanlon in a car crash in Rhode Island last summer and Medina of cancer during the school year. They were honored with a moment of silence at the request of Head of School David Klein.

The 68 graduates were awarded a collective $2 million in scholarships, finished second in the state in the Connecticut Academic Performance Test and finished third in the state in the Scholastic Achievement Test.

The nine graduates in the new Norwich Transition Academy post-high school vocational program proved they share a strong work ethic and determination to learn new skills needed in the region's job market.

Kristiyana Petrova talks and acts more like an adult than most people do, even after they’ve had their whole lives to learn how to be an adult. She approaches every interaction like a job interview, statistics and charming anecdotes pouring out of her, each told to convince you she deserves your respect.

Since his junior year, Evan Jones has spent more than 300 hours, between shifts at the local Dunkin Donuts, stripping down and rebuilding this 70-year-old machine as a tribute to his grandfather Gerald Jones.
Since his junior year, Evan Jones has spent more than 300 hours, between shifts at the local Dunkin Donuts, stripping down and rebuilding this 70-year-old machine as a tribute to his grandfather Gerald Jones.

The crash cut short the life of Anique Ashraf, a budding activist and artist, a gay Muslim who came to Connecticut College already full of conviction and able to shape-shift between the various versions of himself.